


The Timeline They Left Behind

by Sphruvian



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 2012!Steve, Alternate Timelines, Don't copy to another site, Eventually this will be a fix it fic but shit has to go down first, Hydra, Steves not actually hydra don’t worry, hydra!steve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2020-02-21 16:52:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18706426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sphruvian/pseuds/Sphruvian
Summary: Back in 2012, the Avengers are left to deal with the aftermath of their future counterparts' Time Heist. Steve, especially, has a lot to sort out after having a chance encounter with himself, and the sudden inheritance of an extra decade of memories.





	1. Chapter 1

Steve awoke laying face first on a cool granite floor, surrounded by shattered glass. Smaller shards were trying to pierce their way through is costume, but aside from a handful of bruises he was relatively unscathed. With a grunt, he rolled over and sat up to see a long, silver briefcase laying by his feet. A quick look around was enough to determine that he was alone.

“Rodgers, I’m sending backup to the 14th floor,” Fury’s voice buzzed through Steve’s earpiece, “status update?”

“Don’t bother. I’ve lost sight of him. But,” Steve stood up and popped the silver case open, “the scepter is secure.”

“That motherfucker almost got the scepter too?” Fury let out a long sigh. “Rendezvous with the others back at Stark’s Penthouse. Watch your back. Don’t. Trust. Anyone.”

“Copy.”

That much was already clear to him. He’d just finished a fight against himself, where he had only narrowly outmatched the other him. Really, it was a fight that only could have been won by luck, which had come to him in the form of hitting the other Steve with a pulse from that scepter.

Wait.

Wasn’t he the Steve that got hit with the scepter? That would explain why he was on the floor. But... if that was true, why did Loki leave without it?

…

“Penthouse, right.”

Steve headed for the stairs. He knew he could handle himself in an elevator fight, but he didn’t want to risk it. Not right now.

And the exertion would help him think.

What does he know for sure? He’d been told over the comms that Loki had escaped with the tesseract. Right after that, a second Steve showed up. This wouldn’t have been the first time Loki pulled that kind of trick - even if he'd only used it to mock him, Steve had to admit it was very good.

Yet this one didn’t feel like an illusion. He’d seen how Loki’s duplicates in Germany were completely incorporeal, and he’d never actually seen Loki fight like that. Like him. Every move Loki had made, Steve could remember making the same one. Could he copy that too, or was he learning as he fought? As the fight replayed in his head, he couldn’t even keep track of which Steve was which. Which Steve was him.

He shook his head to clear it. This wasn’t making sense.

What was he doing before he encountered Loki, then?

He had taken the elevator down.

He had stepped into of the elevator, full of people he couldn’t trust, people he hated, and he had stepped out holding the scepter case.

No, that can’t be right.

His elevator was empty. He had left before everyone else to search the tower for injured civilians.

Besides, he hadn’t felt that strongly about anything since coming out of the ice. Nothing had inspired that level of disgust and anger in him since... since…

_Hydra_

The word reverberated around his skull. Why was he thinking about them now? Hadn’t he gotten rid of them decades ago?

Why can’t he think straight?

When he reached the fire door on the top floor, he knew he could be sure of one thing: Loki had messed with his head.

 

* * *

 

“Perhaps it was jostled during the fall, sir,” Jarvis’ voice echoed through the room. “though my diagnostics at that time did not indicate that any soldering had come loose.” Tony’s circular arc reactor was suspended above a table as a holographic screen in front of it scrolled through tables and charts. “I cannot pinpoint the exact issue, as it appears to have undergone significant electrical interference; so much so that had you leaned the wrong way on your way up here the boards would have short circuited.” Tony himself was reclined in one of his chairs, mechanical arms whirring around him as his newly implanted ‘heart’ was scanned and tested. “It is possible that it overheated from stress, sir.”

“I can say from experience that there’s absolutely nothing stressful about flying through a wormhole and almost being nuked to death while I’m millions of miles away from earth,” Tony replied flatly, staring at the ceiling.

There was a minute of uncomfortable silence.

Steve had been the last one to arrive at the penthouse, so he found a wall opposite Tony’s chair to lean on. Nat and Thor had taken seats by the bar, and Clint was standing in a corner - staring down at the wreckage the Chitauri had caused. Presumably, he was also keeping an eye on Banner as he worked on de-Hulking down on the landing pad.

“So, what exactly happened down there? I gotta say, you two really dropped the ball.” Steve looks from Tony, to Thor, and back again.

“More like he dropped dead,” Thor says with a wide grin on his face, “and it’s a good thing I was there to save him!”

“You almost killed me more! Were you not listening to Jarvis’ analysis, or…”

“But that’s when Loki just… disappeared.” Thor’s face had fallen. “He didn’t even say goodbye.”

“Now, call me crazy, but while I was dying on the floor I heard someone else calling for help, but in my voice - “

“And we all know how much you love the sound of your own voice,” Nat cut in.

“ - and I know for a fact that it wasn’t me. So it must’ve been - “ Tony holds out his hands for dramatic effect, “Loki impersonating me. We all know he can do that, right?.”

“Makes sense. With your voice, he can get pretty much anywhere in the tower. And that’s how you knew it was him on the 14th floor, Cap?” Natasha’s question startles him, and it takes him a second to regroup.

“Actually, it was a bit easier than that. He was impersonating me.”

“That must’ve been weird,” says Clint.

“Did he do the ass justice?” Steve shoots Tony a pointed look.

“We ended up fighting. I don’t remember him being that good at hand-to-hand combat.”

“That’s because he’s not. I may be a fighter, but my brother prefers his tricks.” Thor shakes his head. “He wouldn’t have taken you head on.”  
Steve combs a hand through his hair, thinking hard. He freezes.

Wasn’t he wearing his helmet when he left? When did he take it off?

“Incoming call from Director Fury, Mr. Stark.” Tony swipes his finger on a panel on the chair, and Fury’s face appears on several screens around the room. Maybe Steve can finally get some of his questions answered.

“How is it that you managed to capture Loki and lose him again in the span of ten minutes?”

“Uh -”

“I got the security footage, Director,” Agent Hill’s voice came from somewhere offscreen, “sending it over... now.” An overhead shot of Tony, Thor, and Loki exiting the elevator into the lobby appeared on the screen.

“You know, you could’ve asked nicely and I would’ve sent you the access codes.”

“We didn’t have that kind of time, Mr. Stark. We need to find the tesseract before it leaves New York.” The 3 men on the screen had continued forward until the were met with Secretary Pierce’s entourage.

Wasn’t he dead?

Had Steve even met Pierce before?

_Traitor._

Suddenly, the Tony on the screen collapsed, and a couple of seconds later the briefcase he had been carrying went flying backwards.

“Hill, switch viewpoints. Follow that briefcase.” The screens paneled, showing Stark getting electrically resuscitated by Thor on one side, and rest of the lobby on the other. The switch happened just in time to catch a security guard getting Hulk Smashed by the stairwell door. Steve clenched his teeth, hard. There were a couple of gasps from elsewhere in the room.

The briefcase went skidding back into the first camera’s view, where it popped open and the tesseract rolled right into Loki’s feet.

Just then, the elevator opened to let a squadron of SHIELD agents into the room, Rumlow and Sitwell among them. Steve missed what happened next because his stomach had twisted into a painful knot. _Hydra_ , his brain was insisting.

“Hill, follow that security guard. I’m going to see what Cap was up to on floor 14.” The screen went back to a singular view, where 2 Steves were approaching each other on a walkway.

“There were two of them?” Rumlow exclaims. The Captain Americas started their clash, exactly as Steve had remembered.

Sitwell laughs and shakes his head, but he’s visibly tense. “Were you the one in the elevator with us?” He’s looking over at Steve, expectantly.

“Yes,” Steve replies without hesitation, “I remember that much.” This time, he does remember clearly who was there with him, because the feeling he got from this man was far too familiar.

“That’s all we wanted to know. Now if you don’t mind, we’ll take the scepter off your hands so you can deal with this.” Sitwell reaches his hand out, and it takes all of Steve’s willpower to not back away and refuse him. Logically, there’s absolutely no reason he shouldn’t trust this man. Steve finds himself struggling to find a concrete fact about this man that’s not obviously fake. Maybe that was part of what Loki had done to him.

He hands over the case.

“Thank you.” Sitwell flashes him a tight smile before signaling to the rest of the agents and leaving through the elevator once again.  
Steve turns back to the screen just in time to watch himself tumble off of the walkway.

“Where did they land?”

“I can’t seem to find a camera pointed at them, Director.”

“Motherfucker.” Fury’s face reappears on the screen. “Cap, can you tell us what happened down there?”

“Well, we fought some more. It’s… a little difficult to remember.”

“Do you at least remember how he got away?”

“I’d like to know that myself, to be honest.”

Fury stands up and looks over the top of the webcam. “I need every available agent searching Stark Tower security footage. I want to know the whereabouts of every single person in that building starting from this time stamp. Any one of them could be Loki, and we need to figure out which direction he’s headed.” With that, Fury sat back down, looking directly at the camera with his one good eye. It feels like he’s boring a hole through Steve’s chest. “Is there anything else that I should be aware of?”

“Keep an eye out for a second Tony Stark, too. I know we just watched him peace out with a smoke bomb, but I’m damn sure I heard him using my voice. Romanov even agreed that it makes sense.”

“Noted. Anything else?”

“Did he say anything to you? Any kind of clue?” Nat had spun in her chair to face Steve.

“A couple of snappy remarks, I think.” Steve shakes his head as he looks down at the floor. “There was one thing, though, but I can’t...”

_Bucky_

_is_

_alive._

_Bucky is alive._

It hit him like a train, just as it had when he heard his voice say it during the fight. Suddenly, everything came rushing to the front of his mind.

_Bucky is alive because he survived the fall._

_Bucky is alive, and he’s being held by SHIELD._

_Bucky is alive, and he’s being held by HYDRA._

_Bucky is alive, and he’s being used as an assassin._

_Bucky, my Bucky, was frozen in ice for just as many years as I was._

_Bucky isn't gone._

“Hey Steve. Steve. Can you hear me? Is everything alright?” Natasha was standing in front of him now, hand on his shoulder.

_How could any of that possibly be true?_

His heart was pounding against a hole in his chest he didn’t have. “Loki did something to me. I don’t know exactly what, but it isn’t good.” Steve takes a deep breath. “I think I took a hit from his scepter.”

“Is he mind-controlling you?” Clint has snapped to full attention. He starts walking over.

“I don’t think so. It’s not that.”

“Steve, look me in the eyes.”

“I don’t want you guys worrying about me. We have bigger -“

“Captain Rogers, this is serious. If you’re compromised, I’m going to have to pull you from the next operation. I can’t have you running around ripping another portal open.”

“Look me in the eyes.” Clint repeats himself.

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to tell, Clint. His eyes are already kind of a brilliant blue.” Tony’s attempt at diffusing the situation actually manages to make Steve chuckle.

“Are you planning on buying me dinner? First my tush, now this.”

“Well I was planning on getting dinner for the team, but, well, now our shit’s fucked.”

“ _Language._ ” The moment the word was out of his mouth, Steve knew he would regret it.

“Well, damn. Sorry, I mean darn,” Tony said with a smirk, “if that’s not our Steve, then Loki’s fooled me.”

“His eyes look normal,” Clint reports. “He’s clear.”

“That’s good to hear. If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave you guys to regroup. Tony knows how to reach me.” Fury waits a moment, then presses a button to cut the connection.

“I don’t understand, though. When Natasha knocked my head hard enough to undo the brainwashing, there wasn’t any… residue. It was just gone, except for the memories of what I did.” Clint paces back to his corner near the window.

“Did he ever give you any… false memories?”

“No, only commands. Like someone urging me to do something.”

“Well, shit.”

“ _Language!_ ” The room practically said in unison. Steve grimaced.

“Sorry. I just - I need a minute to sort through all of this. By myself.”

“You have any idea how suspicious that sounds?” Clint folded his arms.

“Yeah,” Steve met his eyes again, “yeah. I do. But I won’t have any answers for you guys until I can sift through whatever’s going on inside my head. You guys know how to keep tabs on me,” he gestures to the nearest screen. “Call me back if you figure out anything else, though. If we need to fight again, we need to do it as a team.” With that, Steve entered the stairwell again.

 

* * *

 

Fake memories was one thing that made sense, at least. He kept remembering impossible things. Being in two places at once. His old enemies, risen again. His old friend…

Loki was trying to hit him where it hurts.

He started the walk down. If he headed to where he had been out cold on the floor, maybe he could spot something he missed.

But why did he remember people he was sure he’d never met before? Why was he so sure they couldn’t be trusted? Was Loki trying to isolate him, then?

That brought a flood of new memories. He could remember the Avengers fighting among themselves. Him fighting with Tony, especially, for years. Tony betraying his trust, over and over again. And him hurting Tony back. Not always accidentally.

He started sprinting down the stairs as fast as he could.

The agents he had never met, that he knew and hated, the agents sent from SHIELD - they were from HYDRA. Because SHIELD was HYDRA and HYDRA was SHIELD. SHIELD wanted them to collect the scepter because HYDRA wanted the scepter. It wanted the scepter so it could do human experimentation. So it could do more human experimentation. It had already done human experimentation. HYDRA had been experimenting on Bucky for decades. It hadn’t stopped when he’d rescued Bucky in Austria.

SHIELD had Bucky back, and Steve hated them for it.

And that was all part of Loki’s plan, wasn’t it?

By the time he made it to the shard-covered walkway, he was actually out of breath. For a moment, he was able to push everything from his mind and just focus on catching it. He walked slowly towards the intact railing and leaned over it, looking up to see just how far he’d fallen.

Steve had to admit, it was a pretty effective plan that Loki had put into motion. How could he trust anyone, if he couldn’t even trust himself?

He didn’t hear the footsteps approaching him. In fact, he was completely unaware that there was anyone else on the same floor as him until a clap on the shoulder and a close, low voice startled him from his thoughts.

“Hail Hydra.”


	2. Chapter 2

Steve’s whole body tensed. The man standing with a hand on his shoulder wasn’t a figment of his imagination. This man was a HYDRA agent, here, in the year 2012. Just by existing, he confirmed that HYDRA never really went away after the war.

Unless…

Steve grasped the hand on his shoulder, and in a flash had twisted it behind the offending man’s back. He spun to the man’s other side, and pushed at back of his head until he was bent over the railing, looking down at the remaining few stories to the ground.

“How do I know you’re not Loki?” Steve growled in the man’s ear.

“Sorry, this is probably a bad time.” The agent sounded unfazed. Steve twisted his arm harder, until the unknown man gasped in pain.

Not Loki. He would’ve detransformed and surrendered by now.

That left only one possibility: HYDRA existing within SHIELD wasn’t a fake memory, no matter how much Steve wished it was. Were the other agents he had met today with HYDRA, then, like his gut was telling him? The ones in the elevator, when he had tricked them into giving him the scepter by…

Oh no.

They thought he was one of them.

He couldn’t just deny it outright; he already knew too much, as far as they were concerned, just by knowing that they exist. If he valued his life - if he valued the lives of everyone he knew - he needed to play along.

“You can’t be too careful these days.” Steve loosened his grip on the agent and pulled him back to standing. Once the bearded man seemed to have his bearings, Steve smoothed the wrinkles on the arms of the man’s suit jacket in a very careful gesture of goodwill. “My apologies.” Had he hesitated too long before releasing him? Had he already given himself away?

“It’s perfectly understandable. In fact, I probably should’ve expected it.” The man laughs uncomfortably before extending a hand. “You can call me Agent Basso”

“Agent Basso,” Steve repeats. “Captain Rogers.” He gives a single handshake, as solid he can muster with the fear-induced adrenaline coursing through his veins.

“Oh, we all know who you are.” He continued in a lowered voice, “it took us by surprise in the elevator, though, since you’re not in our registry.”

“You certainly took it in stride.” Steve places one hand on the railing, using it to steady himself.

“Part of the job. Speaking of,” Basso pulls a business card from his inside breast pocket, “they sent me to give this to you. That’s the address of one of our operational bases in the Upper East Side, where we can get all of your paperwork sorted and get you up to speed.”

Steve glanced down at the print on the card: Mark Basso. 488 E 88th St, New York, NY. _Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me._ There’s no way that wasn’t an intentional Nazi reference.

He gave Mark Basso a curt nod, sliding the card into one of his utility pouches. It would be best if the conversation didn’t last for much longer; he was never a good liar.

“Much appreciated, Agent Basso.”

Basso turned to leave, but paused a moment and looked back. “Might I ask, how long have you been with us?” Steve’s grip on the railing tightened. How was he supposed to answer that?

“Well, I only learned HYDRA still existed a little while ago, which was a surprise. A lot has changed since the war.” Technically true.

“Mm-hmm.” He considered for a moment. Steve wished he could guess what the man was thinking. “I look forward to working with you, Captain Rogers.” With that, Basso finally walked away.

For what felt like hours, Steve could do nothing but focus on his breathing. Once he seemed to have himself under some semblance of control, he let go of the railing, where he noticed that he had left 4 finger-shaped canyons in the metal. Both of his hands were shaking, badly.

Everything he had fought for almost a century ago had amounted to nothing. HYDRA was so very, very close to re-obtaining the Tesseract, too. The human experimentation, the super powered weapons, the threat of genocide; all of it came flashing before his eyes with a sudden clarity. The soldiers in Siberia. The children in Sokovia. Project Insight. Bucky, tortured at their hands. History was repeating itself, and he couldn’t have stopped it. The world continued on like he hadn’t even existed.

Except all of it was attached to a date and time that hadn’t happened yet.  
Could he stop it before it came to pass? Or was it all complete nonsense, put in his head by Loki?

Steve placed his hand on the utility pouch that carried the card.

Only one way to find out.

“Hey Cap, where are you? I can’t see you on the security cameras.” Tony’s voice in his earpiece nearly made Steve jump out of his skin.

“I’m back on the floor where I last saw Loki. I guess... I was hoping there’d be a clue here.”

“Whatever, Nancy Drew. Fury’s calling everyone back.”

“Everyone?”

“Yeah. He told us not to get too far away, so Clint and Romanov went out to burn off some steam on the landing pad, once Banner de-greenified.”

“Is that a technical term?”

“Of course it is. He’s conked on the couch right now.”

Steve was heading back to the stairwell before he could finish that last sentence. He’d been standing around long enough.

 

* * *

 

Both Thor and Tony were pacing around the room, muttering incomprehensibly to themselves. Tony was presumably thinking about whatever new invention he had partially built and displayed in his hologram.

Bruce was, indeed, out cold on one of the couches, while Nat and Clint sat in chairs across from each other, locked in a staring contest. Those two were so close that sometimes, it seemed like they could read each other’s minds. There was a pang in his chest as Steve remembered what it felt like to be that close with someone.

“Did you do enough soul-searching, soldier?” The Director’s disembodied voice asked. The screens, rather than hosting the video call, were displaying a paused view of some back alley outside Stark Tower.

“I got a few things clarified.” He decided to take the far end of the couch next to Bruce, which roused the doctor from his sleep.

“And?” Fury obviously expected more from him, but he couldn’t exactly say that he had just joined a cult.

“Well,” Steve took another deep breath, “it comes down to this: I have absolutely no idea how much I can trust SHIELD.”

“Yeah, uh, that’s old news, old man. We knew that the moment Banner and I found their plans for the tesseract. Which, by the way, we never fully hashed out how bad of an idea that is. Making bigger, deadlier weapons of mass destruction.” No longer hopped up on painkillers, Tony’s words were razor sharp.

“You’re one to talk.” Steve couldn’t help himself. He really should be thanking Tony for derailing the conversation, but something at the back of his mind was needling him.

“I am THE one to talk. I’ve seen the destruction caused by the weapons we have now, and I’ve also seen the schematics and stats on the nazi weapons my dad studied. You know, the ones powered by the tesseract? The ones that killed thousands upon thousands of American soldiers? The living fossil here can back me up on this.”

“Thanks, Tony, for the reminder that most of my friends are dead.” Steve wanted nothing more than to stand up and put him in his place, get revenge for slights that Tony hadn’t even committed yet. “That’s not what I meant. Not exactly. It’s not just SHIELD, it’s everyone. Like Loki is trying to isolate me.” Loki was already very close to succeeding.

“Well, we just gotta make sure that the Avengers don’t fall apart because of it, because it seems to me that’s what he’s trying to do.” Steve glanced around, and the others seemed to agree. “Now, about what’s on the screen. You’d better just watch.” The frozen scene started moving, and after a couple of seconds the security guard from earlier came into view.

“Do we know who he is?” Natasha asked.

“Just watch.” Fury repeated.

The man looked around before giving some sort of signal, and a second man appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The first man pressed a button on his arm, and his security uniform transformed into a black, white and red armored bodysuit, revealing his face.

He was a dead ringer for Tony Stark.

“Wh-“

“Keep watching, Cap. I’m going to fast forward a bit.” The second man did the same, swapping his pure maroon bodysuit for a matching one. The men on the screen then scurried into a nearby car. “Here.” The screen appeared to jitter a bit, then playback resumed at a normal speed with Steve Rogers himself, holding Loki’s scepter, walking towards the car.

He didn’t remember this.

Steve watched, transfixed, as his double also swapped his red, white, and blues for the same suit as the other two. He waited for the face to change as well, revealing that Loki really was behind all of this - whatever this was - but it was still Steve Rogers. His doppelganger discussed something with Tony’s lookalike, then handed the scepter off to the mystery man. And just like that, he and Tony had disappeared completely, leaving just that last man. His face looked oddly familiar, but Steve couldn’t put his finger on how he knew him.

“You can probably guess why this wasn’t something I could just explain to you; hence the little viewing party. Before you ask, we’ve run facial recognition everyone involved, and confirmed matches for you, Stark and you, Rogers.”

“Surely that’s impossible! I’ve had my eye on Stark from the moment we captured Loki.” Thor, clearly agitated, had started his pacing again.

“What about that third guy?” Nat asked. “He’s not with SHIELD.”

“How do you know that?” Given the amount of HYDRA agents Steve could suddenly recognize, he had considered that the most likely option.

“I make it a point to get to know my coworkers. You know, memorizing their faces, reading their records,” she smirked, “but I’ve never seen that guy before in my life.”

“That would be an accurate assessment, Romanov.” A mugshot appeared on the screen. _Scott?_ A second later, a wall of text began scrolling on the side. “Scott Lang,” Fury read, “on the record as a car thief. Has a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. Currently working a desk job at VistaCorp in California.”

“Then what was he doing in New York?”

“He wasn’t in New York. Company records and CCTV footage suggest he showed up to work like normal this morning, and is still typing away on his computer as we speak.”

“How is that possible?”

“Probably the same way Rogers and Stark were in two places at once. Our leading hypothesis is that someone has interfered with the LMD program-”

“I _knew_ you guys made a life model decoy for me! You just didn’t want to share.” Tony, exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “You really went over the top with the facial lines of existential dread, though.”

Fury ignored the outburst and continued, “- which stands for Life Model Decoy. The LMD Program is an experimental artificial intelligence project that was started with the intention to perfectly emulate a person’s appearance and personality, effectively allowing to be in two places at once. Or, if necessary - replaced.”

“Do we… all have one of those?” Bruce asked. “I gotta admit, that’s almost as creepy as the whole brainwashing thing. No offence, Clint.”

“No, I’m completely with you. That’s super creepy.”

“That would be classified information, Dr. Banner.”

“Oh jeez. We totally do.” Bruce hung his head down in his hands.

“Unfortunately, that is everything I can tell you for now. Bottom line is: we’re not just looking for one person that’s out of place. We have agents investigating the full breadth and depth of the program and the potential breach, but we are operating under the assumption that the models are still small in numbers and pretty unsophisticated, so they should be easy to spot. Still, you make sure to keep an eye out for each other.”

“What should we do if we find one?”

“Destroy on sight.”

“And what about the scepter? I know I double-checked that it was in the case I had, but we also just saw this Scott guy disappear with it.” A duplicate would explain why Loki had apparently left it, but it seemed that Loki was no longer involved.

“It is currently in transit to our DC headquarters. We have the data that Banner and Stark collected while it was on the helicarrier, so we should be able to authenticate it.”

“You could’ve asked nicely for that data, too. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t plan on being a pain in your ass when there are lives at stake.”

“Maybe this team will be a good fit for you after all, Mr. Stark.” Tony rolled his eyes. “I’ll be keeping in touch, but you guys had better get some rest. You never know when you might need to defend the Earth again.” The Director paused for a moment, and Steve could’ve sworn there was a tear in his eye. “And thank you. For everything you’ve done so far.” Fury cut the call off abruptly, leaving the room in silence.

“Well, you heard the man.” Thor was the first one to speak. “Our fight is not over.” Thor started heading for one of the doors leading down to the landing pad.

“Wait, where are you going? Fury just said we need to chill for a bit.” Clint asked.

“Gods do not rest. I am going to search for innocents in the rubble who require aid.” With that, Thor launches himself into the air with his hammer.

A wave of guilt washed over Steve. In the midst of everything that had happened, he had forgotten about his search-and-rescue efforts. How many people had succumbed to their injuries in the time it had taken the Avengers to regroup and figure out what was going on?

“For the rest of you mortals, I have some guest rooms 2 floors down that you can freshen up in. JARVIS can guide you there.” Tony offered, still staring at the blank screen.

One by one, the remaining Avengers filtered out of the room until only Tony and Steve were left.

“Feeling too spry for an afternoon nap?” Tony was back at work at his table, this time on a what looked like a new arc reactor model.

“I could ask you the same thing. I think the only time I've seen you take a break in the past 2 days is when your heart stopped.”

“Not quite. Remember, I passed out in space too.” He waggled the stylus he was holding.

“I wouldn’t exactly call that quality rest.”

“Whatever. I suppose you’re the expert since you got, what, 65 years of practice?” Tony laughed to himself, but his eyes were still hollow with exhaustion. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have more, uh, soul-searching to do?”

“That’s part of why I’m here. You knew about the Life Model Decoy program while the rest of us were in the dark about it. Where did… how did you find out about it?”

“Actually, they approached me about the project. They saw what I had done with JARVIS, and they wanted to use that tech in their weird robot dolls.”

“Did you end up working with them?”

“No, I told them to go fuck themselves.” Tony froze, waiting for a reaction. Steve wasn’t going to give him one. Instead, he pulled up a chair and sat down at the other end of his work table.

“That would explain why Director Fury kept going over your head today.”

“There’s not a whole lot of trust to go around right now. Never was, but now I can’t even trust myself, apparently.” With a wave of his hand, Tony spun the holographic model around to work on the underside.

“Tony, I hope you don’t blame yourself for what happened today.”

“Of course I blame myself for what happened today! I was in charge of the Tesseract and now it’s off god knows where with the most dangerous guy on the planet.” Tony stood up out of his chair and pressed his balled fists on the table, head hanging low.

“You almost died twice. Like JARVIS said, a malfunction is almost expected, and it’s not your fault if-“

“Except it is my fault.” Tony looked up at Steve, anger in his eyes. “If I had designed my arc reactor better from the get go, this wouldn’t have happened. This,” he tapped on his ‘heart’, which was glowing faintly through his shirt, “is my responsibility, and so is everything else I make. It’s something I put out into the world, so when something goes wrong, or even if something goes right, the blood is still on my hands.”

“Do you think I haven’t been beating myself up over my failures, too, Tony? I wake up to find that the Tesseract is no longer at the bottom at the ocean and -“ _HYDRA isn’t gone_ “- and that’s something I could’ve prevented. I watched the Tesseract burn its way through the bottom of the Valkyrie and sometimes I think maybe - just maybe - if I had done something to prevent that, it would’ve been in the crash with me and I could’ve warned someone about it,” _but I can’t think about that; I can’t think about the war and everyone I lost because I’ll freeze up and panic and now, more than ever, I have to stay stoic and levelheaded, not just for me, but for everyone on the team, for the whole world watching us and expecting superheroes when we barely know what we’re fighting against and-_

“Maybe we have more in common than I thought.” Tony had taken his seat once again, and was leaning back in it thoughtfully. “Here I’d thought you’d come over here with a bone to pick with me.” On some level, Steve did. A nagging thought that something about Tony’s speech was too familiar, and whatever it was wouldn’t end well. But for now, Steve was glad that there was a chance they could see eye to eye, and maybe even become friends.

“Maybe we have more in common than I thought, too. One thing being we’re both exhausted.”

“Are you planning on staying in the tower?”

“Actually, I was planning on heading back to my apartment for a bit. Grab a couple of things. It feels like I haven’t seen it in a while.” _In a couple of years._ “Speaking of that, do you have a motorcycle I could borrow? I left mine at home.”

For someone who looked dead tired, Tony was standing and heading towards the elevator awfully quickly. “I’ll see what I can scrape together.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you're reading this chapter, thank you! It's been a while. I said I'd give myself time off for finals and... it turned into the entire summer.

The sun had been set for a while by the time Steve pulled up to his apartment.

_“If you just give me an hour I can check over the subsystems, give it some tuneups.”_

_“No, Tony, you don’t have t-“_

_“I haven’t touched this thing since college. I don’t even know if it’s going to run.”_

It ran perfectly, of course. He parked the borrowed motorcycle next to his own, making a mental note to thank Tony again the next time they saw each other. It was a perfect replica of the one he’d had when he rode with his Howling Commandos. It brought back some painful memories, but the reminder wasn’t wholly unwelcome.

 _“I actually built this using some of the blueprints Dad had saved from the war. He used to talk about you, you know. You and the war. He said sometimes that you were his greatest accomplishment.”_ Tony had been on his back underneath the bike’s engine, so Steve didn’t see his face, but that couldn’t mask the pain in his voice. _“Oh, look, you’ve got me rambling.”_

_“You really should rest, Tony.”_

_“I can’t rest.”_ He had slid out from under the motorcycle to look Steve in the eye. _“I can’t let myself do that.”_

The truth was, Steve couldn’t rest either. Once he was able to get Tony to leave the garage and maybe, hopefully lay down, he spent the next few hours riding through the streets of New York looking for people that needed help, rubble that needed clearing - anywhere he could lend a hand. He needed to do _something_ to take his thoughts off of the paranoia brimming in the back of his mind.

It reminded him of… he hesitated to call it the ‘good old days’. It wasn’t good, it was war, but those days were the first time he had felt like he could truly make a difference in the fight between right and wrong. Looking at the aftermath, though, was always the hardest part. The adrenaline rush of the battle had run its course and the only thing left was trying to find the people you could save and hoping, selfishly, that the bodies of those you couldn’t weren’t anyone you knew. Even now, Steve subconsciously braced himself to see Bucky’s face amongst the crumbling buildings and crushed cars. _He isn’t going to be here. He’s still in a canyon Siberia. I watched him fall._ Had anyone tried to recover him afterwards? Would there have been a body to recover?

 _Bucky is alive._ That’s what his copy had said, and that’s what he desperately wanted to believe, even though no normal human could have survived plummeting from that train. Sure, Sergeant Barnes was a trained soldier, but he was just that. A soldier. He hadn’t received any kind of experimental procedure like Steve had. But… HYDRA had the prototype of the serum, the serum that they had used on Schmidt. Red Skull. Had they used it on Bucky while he was imprisoned in that HYDRA base? He’d changed since he’d shipped off and left Steve behind. He’d stopped drinking. He was stronger, more powerful.

_That generally happens in the military._

_Besides, he would’ve told me if he’d noticed something off, wouldn’t he?_

Had Steve ever really given him a chance to talk about it, anyway? In the few weeks they’d had together, they’d been so focused on hitting the HYDRA bases before they could react that his team hardly had a day to spare. Nobody had given the Nazi experiments a second thought until they’d captured Zola - and by then it was already too late.

_If only we’d had more time._

Steve had already grieved over Bucky once - no, twice - by the time he’d found him in Austria. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing him a third time. So he hadn’t thought about it; he’d been too wrapped up in his newfound abilities to fully realize that this time, Bucky might not always be there for him when he got himself backed into a corner. Had Bucky noticed? He’d been nothing but supportive the whole time they’d known each other, and that hadn’t changed after Steve went under Erskin’s needles. It’s not like Steve lived in Bucky’s shadow, but would Bucky have been too concerned with yanking the spotlight off of him? Did he really think Steve was that jealous?

Search and rescue hadn’t kept his head as clear as he’d hoped, so finally Steve handed the metaphorical baton to the NYPD, and found a place to change into the spare clothes Tony had packed in the motorcycle (he’d have to thank him for that too).

After removing the stashed uniform and shield from the seat compartment and carefully wrapping it in the borrowed jacket, his legs took him, almost mechanically, up the stairs to his apartment. He didn’t even have to think to unlock his door. Key in, pull back just a little, then turn the knob.

Behind the door, everything was just as he’d left it. Even the milk he’d left out on the counter. Steve made his way into the kitchen and unscrewed the cap, releasing the sickly-sweet odor of rotten dairy. _Must’ve been close to going bad._ Well, nothing he hadn’t consumed in the ‘30s, and certainly nothing his post-serum stomach couldn’t handle. Steve poured what remained into a glass; he hated letting it go to waste.

There wasn’t really anything he could put together for a full meal, so he settled on making a peanut butter and jelly on honey wheat bread (there were so many types of bread to try), and eating two bananas (they tasted different now) while he scrambled all of his remaining eggs into something omelette-shaped. 

Steve had only just finished raiding his refrigerator - it had been a long day and he’d forgotten how much this body needed to eat - when a knock rang out on his apartment door. He walked over to his door and glanced through the peephole, and the face looking back at him was a surprise. His old neighbor, Agent Isabelle Hartley. After he’d moved, they’d met again at the Triskelion and had lunch together, sometimes. He hadn’t seen her in years.

“Izzy!”

In fact, he hadn’t seen her since she died.

“... Betsy.”

“Right! Of course, sorry. Betsy.” None of that had ever happened. This was just his next door neighbor, the journalist. Clearly alive, and not a SHIELD agent. “Good to see you’re doing alright, you know, after everything today.”

“Same to you! Isn’t it crazy?”

“I’m not sure I would believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes.” Betsy let out a hearty chuckle at that. “What are you doing here? I figured it would be such a busy news day that you’d be swamped.”

“I’m just here to return this. You dropped it on the stairs.” She held out Steve’s utility belt with a warm smile.

“Oh! I- thank you.”

“You should be more careful, Steve.” The playful glint had faded from her eyes as she said this, but it was back in a second. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I already have miles of interview to type up back at my apartment. You might be right about the no sleeping part.”

“Take care, Betsy.”

“By the way, I like the new look. Almost didn’t recognize you,” Betsy quipped just before the door closed. Steve looked down, realizing he was still wearing the black leather jacket and tight graphic t-shirt from Tony. He didn’t get a chance to explain that these were borrowed before she walked back to her apartment. Maybe that was for the best. She might’ve jumped to some very different conclusions.

Steve made his way back to the kitchen and rifled through his belt to make sure he hadn’t lost anything else. Army knife - check. First aid kit - check. As he was pulling out his notepad, Basso’s business card fell onto the table.

He’d completely pushed that encounter out of his mind. But now that the proof was staring back at him - Steve felt slimy just for carrying it. So far he’d stayed quiet about what was happening inside SHIELD, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep his own involvement a secret. Should he tell someone? Would he be able to dismantle HYDRA from the outside again? No, they wouldn’t have survived this long if they didn’t have some sort of safety mechanism in place.

 _Bucky is alive._ He could hear his own voice so clearly.

 _Bucky is alive and is being held by HYDRA._ That part was unsaid, but Steve still felt it so strongly. At first, he had discounted the notion because HYDRA was supposed to be a thing of the past, something that’s only taught in history books. Now that he knew for a fact that it was still around… what other parts of his memory were true? Steve glanced at the card again.

He wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight, anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really hard to write for me, and I realize I kinda did that to myself by adding 2 characters and a location that were never in the movies. But! I got a lot of the setting up done for the rest of the story. I have an ending in mind. I promise. I just have to get there.

Steve pulled up just outside a run-down apartment building on 88th St, 4 city blocks from Central Park. They’d added a few more avenues in between since the last time he’d been in New York, but the numbering system hadn’t changed. This _had_ to be the place, even though none of the doors matched the address on the card, and none of the buildings exactly looked like a safehouse. That was the point, though, wasn’t it?

A movement in the lobby of the apartment complex caught Steve’s attention. The lights were still on, and it looked like the front desk was staffed. Hopefully they would know the neighborhood better than he did.

Steve parked on the side of the road and fished through his wallet for change to feed the meter. It was Tony’s motorcycle, not his, and even though it wasn’t like Tony couldn’t afford getting it towed, and there probably weren’t going to be any tow trucks not already occupied with clearing all of the smashed and overturned cars downtown, Steve _still_ didn’t want to run that risk and end up having to explain what he was doing out here at nearly 2am. Stuffing his wallet back into the borrowed leather jacket - he hadn’t changed out of it in hopes that it would make him less recognizable - Steve walled up to the door to the apartments.

The lobby was much nicer than the exterior. The floors were polished tile, and the furniture looked fairly new, or at least unused. A woman at the front desk had been typing furiously on a computer, but had paused as Steve approached her.

“Can I help you?” Her voice sounded a bit strained, as if he had interrupted something important.

“Hello,” Steve glanced down, searching for an indication of her name. Rather than a tag or an engraved plate, Steve spotted a familiar pin on her lapel. This was the right place after all.

“Ahem, hello. I was sent here by Mark Basso.” 

A look of surprise flashed over her face, before settling back into trained composure.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. Are you here to visit?”

Had he made some kind of mistake? 

No. Too many things didn’t add up. The power was cut to the rest of the block, so why did this building still have electricity? Compared to the rest of New York, it didn’t look well-off enough to have a backup generator and a staffed lobby. Not that it was out of the question, from what Steve knew of the century that wasn’t… normal. 

And the lapel pin. There’s no way that was simply a look-alike. He’d seen the insignia on too many walls in too many bunkers to confuse it. It wasn’t likely that she was wearing it unknowingly, either. The way everything about her looked slightly strained - she probably knew more than she was trying to let on.

Then what else was he supposed to do?

No, he knew exactly what he was supposed to do, and Steve wanted nothing more than to turn around and go back to his apartment, or even back to Stark Tower and forget about all of this, or, even better, tell the team what was going on instead of hiding it from them. Nat would know what to do. They could help him, couldn’t they? He might have the most experience with Hydra, but they had changed with the times and he, well, he hadn’t had a chance yet. 

But he had to investigate first, didn’t he? He couldn’t go to the team and say ‘hey, this guy told me he’s part of a Nazi organization from World War 2 and gave me a business card, and I have a super bad feeling about him and half of the organization that we work for, which definitely has something to do with getting hit with a _mind control scepter_.’ This was something he had to do alone.

This was something he had to do.

_Remember who you came here for._ He mentally braced himself as he leaned across the desk towards the woman’s ear, crossing his arms and squeezing his chest as if it could keep him from being absolutely sick to his stomach.

“Hail Hydra.” The words left Steve’s mouth as a whisper. He leaned back slowly, carefully, so as not to betray how close his heart was to pounding out of his ribcage, and searched her face for a reaction.

“Right this way.” What was previously slight hostility had turned to slight confusion before settling into trained composure as she opened the desk partition, motioning for him to follow her. “You’re in luck - Agent Basso is still here finishing up a few things.” _Luck doesn’t cover it._

The Hydra agent led Steve into a back stairwell. They descended five flights of stairs, passing a door on each landing, before the woman stopped and placed her thumb on a nearly imperceptible screen on the wall. A deep clunk and a series of clicks resounded in the space as the large steel door unlocked and swung open to reveal a brightly lit, sterile-looking room. It had the breadth and depth of a bunker, but the ceiling was almost oppressively low. The whole area was filled with machines, some of them humming, and desks covered in paper. During the day, it could probably house 100 agents and office workers, but currently it was completely abandoned aside from one man.

“Oh good! I’m glad you were able to come in.” Agent Basso did not look quite as put together as he had 12 hours ago when he’d first approached Steve. He was absentmindedly running his fingers through his slightly-gray hair as he stood in the middle of an array of small crates in various stages of packed. “I must apologize for the mess.”

“It’s been a long day for all of us.” Steve replied.

“I honestly hadn’t expected to be here tonight, let alone packing up half of the lab.” Basso shook his head in before turning to address the woman, who was now examining one of the whirring machines. “Thank you once again, Agent Johnson, for offering to keep a lookout upstairs for me.”

“I wish you’d told me you were expecting _Captain America_.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me if I had,” Basso laughed. “How are things on your end, by the way?” Agent Johnson replaced the panels she’d removed from the machine.

“The composition analysis is still running on the skin samples I collected today, so I’m stuck with doing remote data analysis for the rest of the team. Did you hear they’re down to the last 3 live specimens?”

“That fast?”

“Bauer is pretty sure they’re a hive mind, and their Queen would have been completely wiped from existence by Stark sending that missile through the wormhole.” Johnson shrugged. “Live ones aren’t my area of expertise, though, and after seeing what they did to the city today I think I like them better dead.” She paused, a disgusted look on her face. “We’re still busy, though. It’s a hell of a time to lose you, Basso.” Agent Johnson turned to address Steve, a smirk on her face. “He’s been kicked off the exobiology team.”

“I’ve been _promoted_ off the exobiology team.” Seeming to finally remember Steve’s presence as well, Basso explained, “Secretary Pierce is appointing a new team for protection of, and research on, the scepter we collected from Loki. They needed someone with a little knowledge on alien psychology, so,” he held out his arms as if to complete his thought, “here I am, packing up my life’s work.”

“Well, I have to get back to _my_ research. There’s a lot more I have to do now that you’re traipsing off to DC.” Basso laughed again as Agent Johnson turned to exit. “See ya.” The door closed behind her with a deep thunk.

“So!” Basso clapped his hands together. “It’s been a while since I’ve done any of the introductory procedures. I was really hoping there’d be other agents here, but we can work with what we’ve got.” He carefully stepped over his boxes and strode over to one of the desks, turning on the computer. “Let’s get your SHIELD file pulled up.” A red light came from the monitor and scrolled down his face. Once it shut off, a sing-song beeping sounded from the computer.

“What was that?”

“Hmm? That was a facial scan. We’re using a lot of biometric security these days. It’s a little bit harder to hack than a password, and harder to lose than a card. You’re probably going to need that set up for you while we’re here,” Basso explained. “Oh, here we go.” Steve peered over at the computer screen to see a picture of himself, along with a wall of text and a Shield insignia. “Usually, this will happen right after an agent finishes Shield training, but since this is a special case I should be able to grandfather you in, as it were.” Basso hummed at his own pun. _Is everyone going to make the same old guy jokes? It’s fine when the team does it, I guess, but this just…_

Steve’s train of thought was completely derailed at the next screen. It was the same as the first file, except the Shield logo had been replaced with the skull of Hydra’s insignia. _There’s really no going back now_.

“It looks like Shield already issued you a phone. That’ll need a remote update, but then we should be able to contact you securely.”

“Oh, yeah, I think I left that at my apartment.” Steve patted down his pockets to be sure. “I’m still getting the hang of it, so they gave me a flip phone to start.”

Basso frowned. “That’s not going to work too well. I’ll make a note to get you a smartphone as soon as possible.” He typed something in a side window. “Now for the biometrics, so you can access the system. Looks like we’ll need a retinal scan, fingerprints, and a blood sample from you. Do you mind?” Agent Basso stood up and gestured towards one of the few machines that was not running.

_Yes, I mind. “_ What’s the blood sample for?” Steve asked as they made their way over.

“One of our project labs has been requesting a sample almost every day since the news broke that you’d been found in the arctic. Shield already has quite a few samples from while you were recovering in the hospital, but the paperwork and documentation to get ahold of any amount would be a nightmare. This would be more, say, off-the-record.” 

“I see.” _For more human experimentation._

“If you could just put your hand here,” Basso lifted the cover of a small boxy apparatus, revealing a hand-shaped outline. “This will cover the fingerprints and the blood sample at the same time.” Steve aligned his fingers with the outline, and Basso replaced the cover as the machine hummed to life. He felt something clamp over his middle finger, and something else stab the tip.

As soon as it finished and released his hand, Basso opened the cover of another apparatus on the side of the machine. “This one you need to put the bridge of your nose here,” he gestured, “and try not to blink.” Steve settled his face onto the viewport, and a red light similar to the one that had scanned Basso’s face began moving across his field of vision. Once the machine shut off, Basso murmured, “I love when these things work on the first try.”

“So what, exactly, does this give me access to?”

“Right now, nothing. Once this gets into the system you should be able to access certain Hydra spaces, like our labspace in the Triskelion. Which reminds me - you’re going to be relocated to DC as well, along with Dr Banner. The two of you will be working with my team; Banner because he’s already done a lot of analysis on the scepter, and you because some of the higher-ups thought it would be prudent to have more defense in case Loki makes another appearance.”

“Wait, is Banner…”

Basso let out a short laugh. “No. He’s a man of science, but his outlook on humanity is a little too idealistic for us.” Steve wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended.

“But you’re willing to believe that Captain America’s ideals aren’t.”

“Well,” Basso paused, thinking, “history is written by the winners, as they say, so I’m guessing that not everything written about you is as true as the textbooks want us to believe. I suppose I’ll find out one way or another, since we’ll be working together for the foreseeable future.” The agent said this with a grin, but the words felt almost threatening.

“So when is the move taking effect?”

“Most likely early tomorrow, so you should get packed up.” Basso suddenly pulled out his phone, which had a notification on the screen. He gave it a curt nod before shutting it off and looking back at Steve. “You might want to wait a while before you head back to your apartment tonight, though. Give the cleanup crew time to finish up.”

“I thought they had already finished up by me when I left. There wasn’t too much action that far from Stark Tower.”

“This is a bit more personal than that.” Basso paused to turn on his phone again and type out a short message. “Did you know your neighbor was a Shield agent?”

_Betsy?_ “No, I don’t believe I did.” _Not unless her real name just happens to be Isabelle Hartley._

_Wait… cleanup?_

“Did something happen?” Steve said, suddenly a lot more worried.

“She’d been placed there to keep tabs on you, so naturally we were keeping tabs on her as well. And then, earlier this evening, we were notified that she had gotten her hands on some classified information and that your status with us may have been compromised. Luckily she didn't pass on anything sensitive before we took care of the situation.”

Basso was very careful with his wording, but Steve could guess what he was implying.

And it took everything he had to keep his composure as the blood drained from his face.

_It’s my fault._

“Don’t worry, the cleanup will be thorough. We are willing to make a few allowances for you, seeing as, well,” Basso chuckled, “it’s incredible you’re here at all. It’s not an opportunity to be passed up.” The agent must have sensed Steve’s unease, but he seemed to assume that it was for more selfish reasons. “Besides, nothing should raise too much suspicion tonight, given the state of the city.”

_I need to get back. Now._  

* * *

Steve could see the emergency lights illuminating the dark streets before he had even rounded the corner to his apartment. One ambulance, two police cars, and a whole mess of officers and onlookers. The entire front lawn had been cordoned off with caution tape, so he parked his motorcycle in front of the neighboring building and approached on foot just in time to see a stretcher coming out of the front entrance, a white sheet covering the body. _I’m too late._

“Sir, I must ask you to stay back,” one of the officers called out to him in a slight Russian accent as Steve ducked under the perimeter.

“No, no, wait, I live here. I live on the third floor.” Steve half-jogged towards the ambulance.

“Oy!” The russian officer moved towards Steve, preventing him from getting closer. “Give the paramedics space to do their jobs, ok?” He was a couple inches shorter than Steve and would go down pretty easily in a one-on-one fight, but his words were level and had a certain calmness to them.

“What happened? How many people got hurt?” _Is that my neighbor under the sheet?_

The man motioned for Steve to walk with him. “It looks like there was a break-in. One of the third floor apartments.” 

“No…”

“We are not sure what was taken, but the apartment was turned upside-down, as they say, when we got there.” 

“Betsy...” Steve whispered.

“My apologies. You knew her?”

“I should’ve been here. I could’ve-“

“Hey, there was nothing that you could have done. From what I saw it is likely that you would have been in a lot of danger if you had tried to help.” 

_That’s my job,_ Steve wanted to say.

Why did this bother him so much? He’d seen so many people die, people he wasn’t able to save. Was it the ease with which Hydra had dispatched their ‘cleanup’? Was it Basso’s heartlessness when he told him?

Or was it the possibility that, if he slipped up again, more of his friends would be next?

“Again, I am very sorry. We will do our best to investigate, but the NYPD is spread pretty thinly right now. Do you have somewhere else you can stay the night?” _Is it too late to go back to Stark tower?_

_No, better not._

“I’ve got somewhere to be in the morning. Will I be able to get up there to pack?”

“I can escort you up there, since the paramedics seem to be done.” The Russian officer glanced over to the ambulance, which had started pulling away.

Inside his apartment building, there was nothing out of place. The lobby was empty, the stairwell was empty; the only signs of life were the footsteps of the investigators behind the closed door of the apartment across from his.

“Thank you, officer. I’m sure it’s been a long day.” Steve said, unlocking his own door.

“You are right about that. Stay safe.” The officer reached for the brim of his hat.

“Same to you.” With that, Steve entered his apartment one last time. It was well past three in the morning, and he felt like he could just collapse onto the floor. Steve contemplated doing so for a moment, when he realized he could still hear voices from outside.

“These thieves are giving us Russian immigrants a bad name.” The officer that had escorted Steve up was saying.

“What makes you say they’re Russian, man?” A different officer asked.

“The paramedics told me what they saw in her abdomen. Two russian slugs - the kind you cannot get here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is an intermission of sorts, and it's from a different character's perspective. Let's hope that means I'll be faster at getting it done and published, especially since I'm on winter break and have a couple 8 hour flights ahead of me.


End file.
